At last month's wood turning meeting, we were given a bowl blank as an interactive project with the membership.
The rules were simple:
- We can turn any thing we want, as long as it is a bowl.
- We have to use the block as it was given to us, we can't add any wood to it or cut it apart and re-glue it some other way.
- We can use whatever finishing technique that we desire.
- The blank that everyone received was a piece of glued up white pine that was 8" square and 4" thick.
To me, that is where the challenge started. Any one can turn a bowl. Many can turn a spectacular bowl. The trick is to make any otherwise ordinary bowl blank into something interesting or different.
So how do you challenge yourself with an ordinary piece of wood to make something interesting? It was obviously going to be a combination of the shape, form and finish because white pine is rather plain. To me, just turning a bowl didn't seem enough with a straight, plain grain. I had to push myself into an area that I had never tried before.
I've seen elliptical turnings before. Some have done natural edge bowls that appear elliptical because how the bowl was turned from log that was used. I didn't have that to start with though. My blank was a square block and I don't have the resources to use an elliptical chuck.
After confirming an idea with one of our talented turners in the club, I thought I'd try something that seemed crazy to me and rather advanced for my skill level. I figured that my skill level will never increase unless I try something to push myself to increase it. And that's where I got the idea to do an offcentered turning.
The idea is definitely not something new, just something that I've never done. It was a fun exercise because for one of the first times I had try really think about what I was going to turn. Most of the time, I just look at the wood, try to find what I think are the flaws and how to turn them out, through it on the lathe and turn some sort of shape that I think looks pleasing.
To me, this was complex. I had to plan the shape, how many times I had to flip the work piece and how I was going to keep the centers as the project progressed. Plus, I had to think of what finish I wanted to apply. I figured since it was white pine, it would put up with some abuse and soft enough to fix if it didn’t look right.
Abuse is an understatement. During the whole process, it was turned and flipped multiple times. Waste blocks were glued and re-glued and hand sawn off. It even flew off once.
In the end it was sanded, polished with Kiwi shoe polish, burnt with a blow torch and then finally finished with 4 coats of satin polyurethane with a 4-0 steel wool rub-down between each application.
It is said that it’s the journey, not the destination. To me, this was an epic adventure. After all of that, I had to write down how I got there. Feel free to e-mail for a copy.
Here’s the finished product, I hope you like it…
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